Lights, drafts, ices, pale ales, honey lagers, extra special bitters…just a few examples from the segmentation-happy beer business of the 1990's.
Believing there's something to be said for simplicity, Steve Brown has decided that the whole bunch of them are all wet. Better yet, he's decided he wants to be all Wet.
The Brighton, MI-based entrepreneur has dubbed his brew Wetbeer, a somewhat obvious iteration that grew from when he drank a dry beer.
"I have a background in PR and publicity and sports marketing, notably in the racing field where the breweries are involved," explains Brown, who previously served as publicist for the Foster's Beer Indycar team before spending six years as the director of public relations for Penske Speedways.
"I noticed that a lot of the beer industry is promotion and advertising, gimmicks and hooks. It's the Budweiser bullfrogs and the Coors silver bullet. And when I cracked open this dry beer a few years ago I said, "Dry beer." This doesn't make sense. Beer's 95 percent water. It's supposed to be refreshing. It's supposed to be wet. It's not supposed to be dry."
He also realized that he had a fun and marketable hook of his own. So after he drew up a business plan and made sure that-surprisingly-no one had claims to the name, he trademarked Wetbeer and did what any other beer maker would do next…set up a web site.
Launched in August 1997, now receives 25,000 to 30,000 hits per month from around the world, offers merchandise and posts jokes and slogans such as "get wet," "wet yourself," and dry's out, wet's in." In other words, Brown created a virtual beer without having brewed bottle one.
Why put the cart before the horse? "I knew that the beer business was a very tough business to get into. There are so many people in it, and it's totally influenced by the big boys," says Brown. "You better have something that people have something that people like and are attracted to."
But once he started to get hundreds of e-mails, faxes and phone calls with people contributing their own slogans and asking where to get the potable versions of his virtual beer, "I said, "I've got something. This is a viable idea to consumers." That's what launched the actual beer product."
So, what does a Wet one taste like? Available in the Michigan area since mid-May, Brown describes his beer as a domestic golden lager. "What Wetbeer is not is a microbrew," he says. "I've had a lot of feedback from a lot of people describing it as extremely smooth, refreshing with a hint of sweetness." He contract-brews the beer from Cold Springs, MN-based Gluek Brewing Company, and has produced about 3,000 cases in the first eight weeks.
"The consumer reaction has been just outstanding. I couldn't ask for anything better," enthuses Brown. "I'm really proud of the fact that a few months ago I had no beer, I had no brewery and no distribution. Now I've got a major brewery and 15 distributors. I had zero accounts and now I've got 300 to 400. So Wetbeer is in its infancy. I'm just looking to grow it and expand it as quickly as possible."
Brown secured an account with Kroger's supermarkets in late July. More good news: Wetbeer has recently received a Certificate of Merit from the 1998 Small Business Innovation Awards program from the Small Business Association of Michigan, as a unique product serving a genuine market need.
As for Brown's unconventional approach to making beer, he explains, "Without the big ad budgets like Bud and Miller and Coors and Stroh, my best way is the Internet, word of mouth and publicity."
Noting "it's one guy who put all this together," Brown "can't imagine what a larger company could do with this." His fondest hope? "Partner up with a larger company that can take this to a national level."
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